Please let us downgrade gem level

This has been asked multiple times before, but now with the new unique Indigon, more than ever we need to be able to downgrade gems to control the mana cost. It is basically impossible to use a perfect jeweler's orb when you are playing with Indigon, since any gear change will necessitate up/downgrading your skill gem to make sure you hit the right cost. It is such a simple change I don't know why it is not in the game.

yes it would be nice QoL, in 0.1 I didn't choose my final build until later in the game and had to go back to farm three different specific gem levels for the skills that I needed to be at their base level.

farming the gems was annoying but more so because I did not know which zone level these gems dropped in and had to wait until a zone dropped a gem to know if I was in the right area to farm what I needed.

separate note entirely, but target-farming should be a thing, at least for certain currencies I think. not knowing the drop tables for mobs and bosses is something new to me coming from D2 where every item's drop chance from every mob is public information.

Iirc this was brought up in an interview and it seemed like they weren't 100% opposed to it. They did say that they wanted it to feel bad to use a lower level gem, but it seemed like they hadn't thought of a scenario in which it might be a good thing. Ultimately though, I think they might just say go farm gems.

absolutely agree

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Pattoman#0455 a écrit :

This has been asked multiple times before, but now with the new unique Indigon, more than ever we need to be able to downgrade gems to control the mana cost. It is basically impossible to use a perfect jeweler's orb when you are playing with Indigon, since any gear change will necessitate up/downgrading your skill gem to make sure you hit the right cost. It is such a simple change I don't know why it is not in the game.

I see absolutely no logic doing this.

Each stage increases the damage by 50%.
I do not know the skill you are using, but losing one stage should be much much better, than losing one skill level.

Can you give specific example of what you are trying to do?

how about they properly balance manacost? so warrior skills don't cost as much as if we have infinite mana?

why a single mini cry costs my entire mana pool at lvl 20? and I have to use lvl 5 version on lvl 92?

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Skellymancer#5263 a écrit :

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Pattoman#0455 a écrit :

This has been asked multiple times before, but now with the new unique Indigon, more than ever we need to be able to downgrade gems to control the mana cost. It is basically impossible to use a perfect jeweler's orb when you are playing with Indigon, since any gear change will necessitate up/downgrading your skill gem to make sure you hit the right cost. It is such a simple change I don't know why it is not in the game.

I see absolutely no logic doing this.

Each stage increases the damage by 50%.
I do not know the skill you are using, but losing one stage should be much much better, than losing one skill level.

Can you give specific example of what you are trying to do?

You need to think deeper about the math of Indigon. Indigon is all about spending all your mana all the time, so the most important factor is the damage to mana ratio of a spell. For most spells this remains fairly constant, so casting a low level spell twice will do the same damage as a high level spell once, using the same amount of mana in the process. The reason people chase gem level is simply due to cast speed bottleneck, you need a high level gem to funnel all your mana through.

However, there are certain situations where casting more spells is much better, the main one being flame wall. You now pick up twice the flame wall damage. Or you just want more ball lighnings around so you can lightning warp easier.

Another exception is detonate dead. The damage to mana ratio is much better on low level detonate dead. So at the start when you have just a couple of minions you should use as high a level of DD as you can, but when you get more spirit and minions, you want to detonate all of them with a low level DD.

There are even more subtle situations when you want to control exactly how many spell can be cast over a certain time interval, for example with DD again, the frequency you can continuously cast is determined by the number of skeletal clerics you allocate and corpse preservation percentage. All these need to be finely tuned but it's impossible without being able to downgrade gems.

Indigon is by far the most interesting and deep unique in this patch, I just want to be able to actually play with it. Right now nobody can seriously play and explore Indigon because you just don't have a greater/perfect jewelers orb for every different level of spells you need.

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rhorains#6760 a écrit :

farming the gems was annoying but more so because I did not know which zone level these gems dropped in and had to wait until a zone dropped a gem to know if I was in the right area to farm what I needed.

The Wiki has a reference listing the drop level breakpoints for uncut gem levels that you may find helpful.
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I would agree that the current skill gem system has some challenges. It is an interesting alternative to the experience system of POE1, but has introduced some unfortunate friction. The trade value of uncut gems from campaign is ridiculous and indicative of a system that needs some smoothing out.


Farming uncut gems isn't hard, but farming jewellers' orbs currently is. Being able to downgrade gem levels would help smooth out the investment of jewellers into skills. It wouldn't solve all of the issues with the uncut system, but it would certainly help.

Were a player to accidentally downgrade their gem, they could just upgrade it back again, so it doesn't seem problematic to allow it. I suppose you would have more cases of players twinking low-level characters with fully socketed low-level skills (if they can pay the mana cost), but the game already allows this and POE1 did as well.

It might also be helpful when dealing with balance changes during EA that shift builds around, potentially requiring characters to reduce skill levels.

There is no way they will ever change the skill unlock at certain gem level thing, you get -1 to minimal unlock level if you are lucky and that's it.

Because this weapon type/stat/skill restriction is one of the most important thing to THE VISION, Jonathan decided players should be restricted (that sentiment is not really wrong tho, just not executed well), and keeping you from choosing another weapon's skill as least not freely is a fundamental design of this game.

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TravisL#2218 a écrit :

There is no way they will ever change the skill unlock at certain gem level thing, you get -1 to minimal unlock level if you are lucky and that's it.

Because this weapon type/stat/skill restriction is one of the most important thing to THE VISION, Jonathan decided players should be restricted (that sentiment is not really wrong tho, just not executed well), and keeping you from choosing another weapon's skill as least not freely is a fundamental design of this game.

I don't think you know what I am talking about. I am not talking unlock levels. I am talking taking a level 20 gem back to level 14 when your gear changed because that's how Indigon math actually works sometimes.